The pall of smoke was so great that we could not see the enemy until they were in a few feet of our works, and a lively fusillade was opened by the Seventeenth Regiment on the north side of the “Crater.”  I saw Starling Hutto, of Company H, a boy of sixteen, on the top of the breastworks, firing his musket at the enemy a few yards off with the coolness of a veteran.  As soon as I reached him I dragged him down by his coat tail and ordered him to shoot from the banquette.  On the south of the “Crater” a few men under Major Shield, of the Twenty-second, and Captain R.E.  White, with the Twenty-third Regiment, had a hot time in repelling the enemy.

Adjutant Sims and Captain Floyd, of the Eighteenth Regiment, with about thirty men, were cut off in the gorge line.  They held the line for a few minutes.  Adjutant Sims was killed and Captain Floyd and his men fell back into some of the cross ditches and took their chances with the Seventeenth.

It was half an hour before the Federals filled the “Crater,” the gorge line and a small space of the northern part of the works not injured by the explosion.  All this time the Federals rarely shot a gun on the north of the “Crater.”

Major J.C.  Coit, who commanded Wright’s Battery and Pegram’s battery, had come up to look after the condition of the latter.  He concluded that two officers and twenty men were destroyed.  Subsequently he discovered that one man had gone to the spring before the explosion, that four men were saved by a casemate and captured.

Colonel Coit says he took twenty-five minutes to come from his quarters and go to Wright’s Battery, and thinks it was the first gun shot on the Federal side.  Testimony taken in the court of inquiry indicate the time at 5.30 A.M.

* * * * *

GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT.

General Stephen Elliott, the hero of Fort Sumter, a fine gentleman and a superb officer, came up soon after the explosion.  He was dressed in a new uniform, and looked like a game cock.  He surveyed the scene for a few minutes; he disappeared and in a short time he came up to me accompanied by Colonel A.R.  Smith, of the Twenty-sixth, with a few men, who were working their way through the crowd.  He said to me:  “Colonel, I’m going to charge those Yankees out of the ‘Crater’; you follow Smith with your regiment.”

He immediately climbed the counter scrape.  The gallant Smith followed, and about half a dozen men followed.  And in less than five minutes he was shot from the “Crater” through his shoulder.  I believe it was the first ball shot that day from the northern side of the “Crater.”  He was immediately pulled down into the ditch, and with the utmost coolness, and no exhibition of pain turned the command over to me, the next ranking officer.  Colonels Benbow and Wallace were both absent on furlough.